


And Then, The Stars

by YourPalYourBuddy



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Early Mornings, Established Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Oneshot, Short & Sweet, Stargazing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-16
Updated: 2017-08-16
Packaged: 2018-12-16 07:59:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11824422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YourPalYourBuddy/pseuds/YourPalYourBuddy
Summary: In the blue grey of the early morning the empty space to Steve’s right looks like a candle that’s burned itself to the nub—warm but barely, shadowed and hollowed. He listens to Bucky’s footsteps down the stairs and waits for the telltale creak of the floorboard by the front door, the one they both keep promising to fix and subsequently forget about. And there’s the deadbolt sliding back into the door, too.Steve reaches down between the bed and his bedside table and fishes blindly for his sweatshirt._____________Early morning, mostly nighttime Stucky.





	And Then, The Stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [skatzaa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skatzaa/gifts).



________________________

 

The blankets whisper to themselves as Bucky stirs. Sleepily, Steve watches Bucky quietly slip out of bed, and closes his eyes when Bucky tucks the blankets tight around him. A soft pressure on his shoulder from a kiss, then the bed shifts just so slightly. Steve does his best to moderate his breathing in case Bucky’s still looking. He hears the door open on a breath and click shut on an exhale.

In the blue grey of the early morning the empty space to Steve’s right looks like a candle that’s burned itself to the nub—warm but barely, shadowed and hollowed. He listens to Bucky’s footsteps down the stairs and waits for the telltale creak of the floorboard by the front door, the one they both keep promising to fix and subsequently forget about. And there’s the deadbolt sliding back into the door, too.

Steve reaches down between the bed and his bedside table and fishes blindly for his sweatshirt. 

____________

 

He’s sitting crisscross underneath a tree on a blanket staring at the night sky. Steve pauses a moment, looking around; there’s a crunchy looking leaf by his left foot, and he steps on it. Bucky looks up at the sound.

Steve whispers, “Couldn’t sleep?”

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he says quietly. He shifts, pats the blanket beside him, and when Steve sits he leans against him and then goes back to watching the sky. Steve pulls him close and looks at the sky himself.

“Cloudy tonight,” Steve murmurs. There’s a wispy, faintly luminous section of clouds that he focuses on; the moon’s there, and he wants to see if it’ll come into view. Wind ghosts over his ears and neck and he shivers.

Bucky says, exasperated, “You’re freezing. Where’re your shoes? It’s October.”

Steve plucks the neck of his sweatshirt. “Where’re yours?”

Bucky makes a noise like  _ mmm _ deep in his throat and Steve smiles. He says, pointedly,  _ “I  _ don’t have a medical history the size of Stark’s ego.” He folds the edge of the blanket over their feet. It helps, though Steve would never admit it. “You always freeze before I do. You’d be an icicle while I’m raindropping my way around.”

“Raindropping your way around?” Steve asks, pressing a kiss to Bucky’s temple. Bucky nudges him with an elbow.

He says, “Shh.” Moonlight trips hesitantly over his nose, stumbles on the curve of his lip. Steve kisses him where the moonlight fell.

“Hey there,” Bucky whispers.

“Hey,” Steve whispers back, and kisses him again.

After a moment Bucky says, “I wanted to see the stars.”

“Huh?”

He clears his throat. “You asked if I couldn’t sleep. I had a bad dream, and it was so dark in there I thought I hadn’t woken up.” Steve laces their fingers together and kisses Bucky’s knuckles. Bucky looks at him and smiles slightly. He says, “You know how it goes.”

“I do.”

They lean back against the tree, moving now and then to warm each other’s hands and to kiss, because Steve’s still not over how the light looks on Bucky’s face and the fact that they can do this, now. They’re kissing again when Bucky draws back with an “Oh!”

Steve frowns but Bucky points up to where the clouds have moved aside, and he follows his finger slightly to the left and gasps because there are the stars spotting against the sky. And now he’s watching Bucky look at them because his forehead’s clear and peaceful. He feels it when Bucky’s shoulders relax.

They’re not as bright as they were during the war, after their campfires burnt themselves out. Light pollution blots around the corners of the sky and hazes their edges, and the stars themselves have changed just so slightly. There are some between constellations that he knows weren’t there back then, but a lot of things weren’t there back then.

Bucky rearranges himself so he’s lying with his head on Steve’s thigh. “Play with my hair?” he asks in a whisper, and Steve obliges. Stars reflect in his eyes before they flutter shut.

“Buck?”

“Yeah?”

Steve says, quiet, “You can sleep now, if you want. I don’t mind.”

“Already ahead of you, pal,” Bucky murmurs. His breathing evens out within three breaths. Steve smiles down at him.

He runs his fingers through Bucky’s hair until his eyelids start sliding shut, and he pulls the blanket up around their shoulders as best he can. They wake up in the morning with dewdrops in their hair.

________________________

**Author's Note:**

> It's short and simple, I hope you liked it Mercedes :) 
> 
> Thank you all for reading!! [Come say hi on Tumblr :)](=untiltheendofthelinebuck.tumblr.com)


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